


Overreacting

by codswallop



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Canon-typical levels of snark, Family Game Night, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Panic Attacks, Recreational Drug Use, Rose family dramatics, extremely careful sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: David deals with a health scare, very calmly and maturely and without panicking at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big warning for discussion of skin cancer and some associated medical unpleasantness in the first couple of chapters, but this isn't going someplace very dark, nor is the medical stuff deeply descriptive. Spoilers through 5.11.
> 
> Many thanks to fitofpique for being the best beta and Canadianizer! <3 Thanks also to everyone who listened to me whine and moan while writing this, especially Pun, Pique, and Travels_in_Time, who doesn’t even go here.

“If I tell you something,” said David, when the customer he’d just rung up had finally left them alone, “Will you promise to tell me I’m overreacting?”

Stevie would have monotoned “You’re overreacting,” without looking up from her awful motel spreadsheets or whatever it was she spent all her time poring over these days. Alexis would have gone off on him for overreacting, oversharing, and trying to hog all the attention to himself _like you always do, David_.

Patrick smiled sweetly. “Overreacting to what?”

“I can’t tell you that,” David explained, enunciating his words a little, not being snotty, just clear, “until you promise.”

“Uh huh, you said that. But what if you’re not overreacting? What if you’re underreacting? What if you’re reacting exactly the right amount?”

“That’s irrelevant.” David was beginning to feel a little snip creeping into his voice now, a little snap. “That’s not what I’m asking. Besides, what are the odds of that? Don’t I always wildly overreact to everything?”

“Not _always,_ ” Patrick said, reaching over to fondle the back of David’s neck.

David ducked out from underneath his hand. “Generally, though. Generally speaking.”

“David, what is it you want to ask me about?” Patrick was still smiling a little, patient and fond.

“Nothing,” said David. “I changed my mind.”

Patrick’s eyebrows looked suspiciously amused, but he simply said, “Okay.”

“‘O _kay_ ’?” David demanded.

“Okay. Let me know if you change it back.”

“I won’t.”

“Well, if you do.”

“Well, I can’t, because I’ve forgotten what this was even all about in the first place,” David lied.

“Okay,” Patrick said again, and went back to doing the accounts, like a horrible boyfriend who didn’t even care if David died an excruciating death of some grossly disfiguring skin disease.

*

“What’s that?” Patrick asked, still breathing a little heavily, later on that night.

“What’s what,” David said bonelessly, about to float off on a wave of endorphins, and then he remembered. “Oh. Nothing. It’s nothing.” He’d meant to manoeuvre a way to keep his shirt on somehow, but he’d gotten distracted and forgot. 

“How’d you cut yourself there?” Patrick ran his fingers along the edge of the bandaid that was just below David’s ribs on the left side of his abdomen.

“I didn’t.” David brushed Patrick’s hand away. “It’s just a...thing. Not a thing. An overreaction thing.”

“Oh,” Patrick said, remembering. “What is it, a zit? It’s not bleeding, is it?”

“No! It’s just—fine, it’s a really gross mole being gross, okay? I noticed it was bigger this morning, and I didn’t want to have to look at it, and I especially didn’t want you to have to look at it, so just...leave it alone. It’s nothing. A weird, disgusting nothing.”

“Well, now I have to see it before I die of curiosity. Is it all black, or oozy, or what?” Patrick slid his forefinger along the edge of the bandaid again, trying to lift it up.

“Patrick, ew! Don’t! You know what, this is now literally one of the top five most disgusting post-coital conversations I have ever had in my entire life, so no thanks for that.”

“Only one of the top five? Okay, I have to ask—no, never mind, you’re just trying to distract me. Come on, show me your gross mole so I can tell you it’s nothing and you’re overreacting, and then we can go to sleep.”

David hesitated. “I don’t want to pull the bandaid off. It’ll hurt.”

“I give up,” Patrick said, raising his hands in surrender and then rolling over, away, facing the wall. “Night, David.”

David spent approximately one and a half minutes thinking about spending the entire night lying awake on his own side of the bed wondering if they still had leper colonies and whether there were any four-star ones and how long it took the lepers to die and which body parts they lost first and what it must smell like.

 _“Fine,”_ he said, and ripped the bandaid off all at once. “Ow!”

“You’re so brave,” Patrick said, rolling back over to kiss him. “Okay, let me see—what, that? That’s not so big.”

“It’s bigger than it was last week,” David said, feeling wormy with anxiety again. “It’s a weird colour, too.”

“It’s nothing,” Patrick said firmly. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

David raised himself up on his elbows in sudden alarm. “It’s nothing, or you’re sure it’s nothing? Which?”

“Er,” said Patrick. “Both?”

“No! ‘It’s nothing,’ sounds like you really know. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ sounds like maybe it’s something, but you don’t want to say so!”

“David,” said Patrick, putting his hands on his shoulders and pressing him back down into the pillow. “It’s nothing. I never would have noticed it. As moles go, it’s far from disgusting.” He glanced down at David’s stomach again, then ducked his head and kissed it. “There. All better?”

“Oh my _god_.” David was genuinely disgusted. “Leave this bed, right now, and go wash your mouth with scalding hot water and soap for five whole minutes, and don’t think I won’t actually time you.” 

Patrick laughed, instead, and chased David’s lips with his own, trying to kiss him while David fended him off.

“You think this is a joke? You’ve got...you’ve got mole-mouth now! What if it’s contagious!”

“Okay, listen,” Patrick said, spooning up against him now and gathering him in. “I’ll take you to a dermatologist tomorrow, if you want; I’ve heard there’s a good one in Elmdale. But I’m sure it’s nothing. I mean, it’s nothing,” he corrected himself, and yawned. “Can we go to sleep now?”

“Yep, uh huh, definitely,” David said lightly, kissing him on the hand, which was probably less contaminated by the grossness, and then he waited for Patrick’s lovely warm steady breathing to even out into the shallow rhythm of sleep before reaching cautiously for his phone to google _weird moles_ for the next two hours.

*

David had to open the store by himself the next morning while Patrick ran around and did a couple of vendor pickups and other businessy things that David paid him not to tell him about. It was okay, though. He sold one of their new rejuvenation self-care gift baskets to a dewy-looking twentysomething who clearly didn’t need it, and reorganized the alpaca throws alphabetically by texture, and when he thought to look at the clock it was half-past eleven already and Patrick was just coming up to the door with his arms full of boxes and a bakery bag clenched between his teeth. 

David opened the door for him, took one of the smaller boxes and the bakery bag, and kissed Patrick on his newly freed mouth. “Thanks,” said Patrick. “That’s for you, in the bag—the Mennonites are branching out into croissants, so I brought you a couple of samples.”

“You,” said David, taking another box and kissing him again, “are the best boyfriend in the entire world. Sweet or savoury?” 

“One of each. I thought, though, maybe you could eat them in the car? I called and made you that appointment. They had an opening early this afternoon, so Stevie’s coming by to look after the store for us. She should be here in a few minutes.”

David dropped the boxes onto the counter. “You did _what_?”

“I still think it’s nothing,” Patrick said quickly. “But I looked at it again this morning when you were still asleep, and you know, it’s a good idea to get stuff like that checked out. For your own peace of mind, if nothing else.”

David nodded automatically for a while, like a nodding machine, while bits of his brain swirled around inside his head like birds trying to find a place to settle. “Peace of mind,” he repeated. “Hm.” 

“Yep,” Patrick said.

David started to say something, changed it to another “Hm,” and nodded some more. “I notice you’re not telling me not to freak out,” was what came out finally.

“Oh, I know you’re gonna freak out,” Patrick said. “I built in a little time for that.”

“ _Did_ you.” David rearranged some of the body milks on the counter he was leaning against, then re-rearranged them back. “Well, wasn’t that considerate. Can we go back, though, for a minute? Did you build in enough time for that? Okay, yeah. You,” he cleared his throat a couple of times. “You looked...at my mole...while I was asleep.”

“In the daylight, this morning, yeah. I mean, not under a magnifying glass, obviously—”

“Okay, I have never felt so violated in my entire life, but let’s move on. You looked at it again, and then decided maybe it wasn’t nothing after all, so you spent part of your morning calling dermatologists and Stevie instead of talking to me about it. That’s what you decided to do.”

Patrick nodded, looking less assured now and doing some throat clearing of his own. “Yeah, when you say it like that...but David, look. Listen to me. I was just trying to make it all easier for you, but you don’t have to keep the appointment if you really don’t want to.”

“I don’t,” David said, halfway between a question and a statement. Patrick nodded again. “But you’d like me to. Because you’re no longer sure it’s nothing.”

“I still think it’s probably nothing. But I’m not a dermatologist. And you seemed pretty worried, yesterday, so.”

“ _Probably_ nothing?”

“Very, very, probably,” Patrick said, still patient and more assured again. “Like I said. Peace of mind.”

“Mine or yours?”

Patrick came over to him, then, and put his arms around David’s shoulders. “Both,” he said. “I’m not into the idea of taking any chances with you. Not even a completely miniscule, almost totally insignificant one. Humour me? I know I’m overreacting.”

David shook his head and laughed up at the ceiling. “You’re too good at this,” he said when he looked back down at Patrick, who was gazing very earnestly and only a little bit warily up at him. “How are you so good at this? Fine. I’ll go.”

“Really?” Patrick looked immeasurably relieved, which was...not great, for at least a couple of reasons, but David wasn’t going to get into that now. He did want to know one more thing, though.

“What did you say to Stevie?”

“That we had an important last-minute client meeting with the cat hair weaver.”

“Lying to my best friend. Wow. Did she buy it?”

“I think so. I also asked her if she had any Benadryl, because of my allergies. I’m a very good liar.”

“That’s not remotely true, but okay. Oh, she’s almost here now, I see her—should we go, before she thinks to ask us what kind of emergency cat hair meeting we could possibly have that requires both of our attendance?”

“Probably not a bad idea. Don’t forget your croissants.”

“I can’t eat _now_ ,” David said, appalled. “Some stranger with freezing cold hands is going to be _looking at my stomach_ within the next hour or so. I can’t have it all swollen with baked goods. You’re buying me ice cream after it’s over, though.”

Patrick patted him on the back, following him out the door. “If you’re a good boy.” 

“Actually, there’s a shoe store in Elmdale that sometimes has some things that aren’t entirely gruesome,” David mused. “Maybe, if I’m a _very_ good boy…”

“Ice cream,” Patrick said firmly. “Nice try, though.”


	2. Chapter 2

The dermatologist’s exam was completely awful: cold, and boring, and humiliating. David had made Patrick stay out in the waiting room, in an effort to hang onto one tiny scrap of dignity, and also to punish him a bit by making him sit there with only People magazine, his phone, and the sight of two very badly reproduced and execrably framed O’Keeffes to entertain him. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Patrick said brightly, when they finally let David put his clothes back on and return to him. “I thought it might take longer.”

“Oh, it _was_ so bad,” David assured him. “And it would have felt like longer to you, if you’d been the one literally freezing your ass off wearing nothing but paper for the past six million hours. Have I ever mentioned how much I completely hate doctors?”

“Other than the ten or fifteen times on the drive over here today? I’m not really sure. So...is that it, you’re good, we can go now?”

“No such luck. The exam’s over, but now I’m waiting for her to go over the results.” David dropped into the chair next to Patrick, not even caring that it was even more hideous than the ones at the motel and probably crawling with other people’s skin-diseased effluvia.

“Ah.” Patrick reached over and threaded their fingers together in a reassuringly tight grip. David let him do it. Patrick’s hand was the warmest thing he’d felt in hours. When they called his name again, Patrick gave him a squeeze and started to relax his grasp, but David held on to him and pulled him up. “Oh,” he said. “You want me to come along this time?”

“Um, if that’s okay with you?” David hoped it was. The doctor had actually been nice, kind of cute in a totally nonthreatening way and very chill but competent-seeming, and the informational posters of scary skin things on the exam room walls looked _so_ much worse than his that he’d been feeling reassured for a while, but now...he just really didn’t want to let go of Patrick’s hand. 

“Of course,” Patrick said, and kissed him quickly. “Hey. Don’t look like that. It’ll be fine.”

*

But it wasn’t. Not quite. 

*

“It’s called a saucerization biopsy,” the cute but no longer nonthreatening doctor told them. “It’s a minor procedure—we can do it right here in the office, today, in fact, if you’d like, and I’d also like to do a shave biopsy of two other sites to rule out any concern, on your collarbone and lower back.”

“Oh my god,” David said, and she smiled understandingly and patted his hand, the one that didn’t have Patrick in a death grip.

“A minor procedure,” she repeated. “And basically painless, although we’ll give you a prescription for something mild for after the anaesthetic wears off. I’m not terribly concerned, I want you to understand, this is mainly a precaution. I’ve got some printouts here for you that describe the entire process, so how about if you take a few minutes to read through them—and collect yourself a bit,” she added, because David had been repeating _oh my god oh my god oh my god_ under his breath the entire time she’d been talking. “I’ll come back soon to answer any questions you might have, and if you decide to get it taken care of today, we’ll have you out of here and on your way home in another hour or so.”

“Thank you,” Patrick said. “How—how long before you’d have results, do you know, or…”

“A week to ten days,” she said briskly. “Back in a few,” and left them.

“I’m going to throw up, and then I’m going to faint,” David said. “Unless I do it the other way around, in which case, please put me in the recovery position and try and keep my airway clear. Actually, you know what, forget that—don’t do any of that, because I’d rather die quickly of vomit asphyxiation while unconscious—”

“David,” Patrick said, kneeling down on the floor in front of his chair to rest his forearms on David’s thighs and look up into his face. 

“—than slowly and excruciatingly of skin cancer, after months of disfiguring operations and chemo and losing my _hair_ , do you even have any idea what a bad look that would be on me, ohmygod I can’t, I can’t—”

 _“David,”_ Patrick said again, getting a hand around the back of his neck. “Stop. You are definitely, definitely overreacting now.”

“I know that!” David shook out his hands, flapping them helplessly. “But I can’t, I can’t _breathe_!”

“That’s because you’re having a panic attack. Come on, breathe with me, I’ll count. In-two-three-four, out-two-three-four...”

Which actually helped, even here, even now. It always did. It always did, and Patrick’s hands were still incredibly warm and not shaky at all, and he always knew exactly what to say and when to say it, even when his boyfriend had just basically been handed a death sentence right in front of him, so that was even more super-impressive than usual.

Come to think of it, it probably sucked to be Patrick almost as much as it sucked to be David Rose right now—more, maybe, because Patrick didn’t have anyone to breathe with him and say the right things in a calm steady voice. He only had David, who was worse than useless at the moment, freaking out hysterically and bleating about his stupid hair like...like Moira on a bad day. 

David winced. He knew he was his mother’s son. It wasn’t always a bad thing. But there were times when he’d give a lot to have had someone else as a formative role model, and this was probably one of them.

“Okay,” he said, after one more long shaky exhale. “I’m okay now. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Patrick. “Please don’t be sorry. You know I don’t mind.”

David did know, and now he was sorry for being sorry, because he actually did remember that Patrick hated it when he apologized for panicking, but it had been a weird day, and he was incredibly tired.

“So,” David said, closing his eyes and shaking his hands out one more time. “God. This sucks. Okay. Why don’t you read the papers and tell me the parts you think I need to know, because you’re better with...information-type things, and I’m still working on processing air.”

“You want to go through with this today?” Patrick looked skeptical. “Are you sure?”

“Are you kidding me? We’re _here_. Of course I want to get it over with today!”

“Well, that’s...good, I guess. Good. Right. You’re right, of course.” Patrick got up, ran his hands through his hair, sat down again, then got up to retrieve the papers. 

“You’re not freaking out, are you?” David asked. “I don’t think there’s any time built in for that.”

“You’re terrible,” Patrick told him. “And I love you. So much. We can do this, all right? You can. You can definitely handle this.”

“Of course I can. It’s just a little saucer biopsy. Saucer-something. Saucercision? Why is it called that, do I want to know?”

“No,” Patrick said, reading. “Probably not. It takes less than three minutes, once the local takes effect—that’s good, right?”

“The _local_ ,” David said. “Hold the phone, I’m supposed to be _awake and conscious_ while they remove actual pieces of flesh from my body? That’s, that’s just—” He took in Patrick’s worried expression. “Fine,” he finished. “It’s just fine, because it’s a completely minor procedure. Basically painless, is what I’ve heard.”

“David,” said Patrick, helplessly, and put the papers down to kiss him. 

*

It actually wasn’t super painful, during, although that didn’t include the part where they stuck a massive needle into his skin to numb it up, _three times_ , which was totally unfair and not at all fun. But he got through it without crying or hyperventilating, and in less time than he would have believed, they were actually in the car again, and David was angling the rear view mirror so that he could get a better look at the gauze patch taped over his collarbone and decide which of his sweaters he could still wear without revealing it.

“I’m going to swallow my entire emergency Valium stash the second, I mean the exact second, we get back,” he announced, “Along with six aspirins and a vodka chaser, and then I’m going to shower the smell of doctor’s office off my body until the hot water runs out, and after that I’m going to completely slather myself with vitamin E to minimize the scarring potential. Only then will I feel semi-human again.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to do...actually almost any of that,” Patrick told him. “The Valium might be okay. One Valium. Just to be clear, you weren’t listening at all, then, when she explained the aftercare procedure?”

“Oh god, no, I tuned the whole thing out so I wouldn’t vom. I can’t even shower? You’re not serious. What about a bath, at least?”

“No baths for a while,” Patrick said, taking back control of the mirror. “Showers are okay after twenty-four hours. How about that ice cream, though? I’d say you earned it.”

David thought about it. “I’m not trying to be dramatic, I swear, but I am absolutely one hundred percent not at all hungry right now. Rain check?” 

“Overruled. _I_ need ice cream. And you should try to eat something, after skipping lunch. We’ll stop by a roadside stand, okay? I think the fancy artisanal place would be wasted on both of us right now.”

The roadside place was wasted on David, too. He managed two and a quarter spoonfuls before sitting back to watch the rest of it melt.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” Patrick said eventually, not faring much better with his own dish. “I don’t mean as in sympathy, I mean I feel like it’s my fault.”

David stopped playing with his ice cream spoon and shook his head. “I’m sorry, what?”

“For dragging you to this appointment, putting you through all this for what’s almost definitely going to turn out to be a false alarm—yeah, obviously it’s my fault, you wouldn’t be sitting here covered in open wounds and so upset you can’t even eat ice cream, if I hadn’t had to—“

“Okay, but that’s in _sane_ ,” David said, making a swirling gesture in the air between them with the spoon. “So just stop. You were, like, looking after me, trying to take _care_ of me, which is...pretty much something no one has ever done for me before, ever, and if by some stupid chance it turns out I do have fucking skin cancer, I can’t believe I just said that out loud, you will have probably just saved my life by making sure they caught it at an early stage. Also, ‘covered in open wounds’? Ew!” He dropped the spoon definitively back into the pool of melted ice cream drool. “There’s an image to make me never want to eat again. You can apologize for that, if you want. Not anything else.”

Patrick, who’d been looking down at the picnic table while David spoke, bit his lower lip and glanced up sort of mistily at him in a way that would have been incredibly adorable bordering on sexy under other circumstances. “Well. Thanks. And I’m sorry for mentioning your open wounds.”

“Double ew! Stop!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I say it again? I’m just having a hard time thinking of another way to describe...open wounds.”

“You’re just doing it on purpose now!”

“Yeah.” He reached over and took both of David’s hands, and they just sat, for a while.

“How am I going to survive the next week to ten days?” David asked eventually. “Any ideas?”

“By staying far, far away from Google and keeping as busy as possible,” Patrick told him, as though he’d thought about it, which he obviously had. He was a thoughtful guy; of course he’d thought about it.

“Uh-huh. _I_ was thinking, though, that I might have just enough emergency Valium to get me through...half a day, if my mother hasn’t found it by now and stolen it, which is moderately unlikely, but you know how Ted has to prescribe sedatives for animals sometimes? Would he consider it unethical, do you think, if someone needed them in a human-being-sized dose for a really, really good reason, or else maybe in theory I could tell him about a friend of yours who has an anxious mastiff?”

“No,” said Patrick.

“Or a horse, but a really small, obviously a very small pony or even a miniature horse—”

“Games,” Patrick said. “We’re going to play lots of games, this week, we’ll invite people, it’ll be fun. Are you going to tell your family anything?”

David closed his eyes and shook his head slowly and dramatically. 

“Are you sure?”

“I am so sure,” David said quickly. “Seriously. Can you imagine?”

“I can imagine they’d...try to be supportive?”

“My dad,” David said, “would be so supportive he’d smother me to death with his extremely helpful and well-meaning supportiveness, and my mother would alternate between taking to her bed with the vapors and full-scale planning my tasteful yet economically priced funeral. Alexis would say “Ew, David!” nine thousand million times and try to incinerate all my stuff because it might be catching, and make really obvious plans for what she’ll do with my half of the room when I’m gone…”

“They might surprise you. You should give them a chance. Think about it?”

David shrugged. “I’d tell Alexis,” he admitted, “if I didn’t think she’d tell literally everyone we know within half an hour. She just can’t help it. Um. I’ll tell Stevie, though. Yeah.”

*

“Damn,” Stevie said. “Obviously I knew you weren’t meeting with the cat hair knitter, because your boyfriend is the worst liar—”

“He really is, isn’t he?” David said, and they both made identical _aww, so cute_ head-tilt faces at each other, although Stevie’s was probably at least partly sarcastic. All right, definitely mostly sarcastic.

“I was hoping, though,” Stevie went on, “for your sake, that it was a cover for you two to go off and get some”—she made a circle with her thumb and finger and poked her other index finger through the hole on each of the next three words—“You. Know. What.”

“That’s, wow. Still so fresh. Never gets old. No, it was actually a cover for him to basically kidnap me and force me to have my naked body really unsexily scrutinized by a complete stranger, and then have bits of it scraped off in hopes of finding out that I don’t have a terminal disease.”

“God, that actually is kind of hot, though,” Stevie said. “I mean, he seriously cares about you, you know?”

“Mmhm. Yes, he does. Unlike some certain other people. Who are currently in this room.”

“David. I hate to have to break this to you, truly, but you don’t have skin cancer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, when was it that you got your medical degree? Was it one of those online ones, is that what you’ve been doing on the internet every day while you’re supposed to be working?”

“Your skin-care regimen takes a full two hours a day and involves more products than I have in my entire apartment, and I’ve never seen you step outside wearing less than three layers of fabric, not even in the middle of July. Seriously, I think you’re safe.”

“Well, excuse me, but I used to go to the beach at least once a month when I lived in SoCal, and twice I ran out of zinc oxide and had to borrow someone’s gross chain drugstore brand sunscreen that was only SPF forty-five!”

Stevie mouthed the word _wow_ in slow motion.

“Not to mention the time Alexis made me go with her to the tanning salon!”

“Did you get into a tanning bed?”

“I was in the room with it! It...radiates! Do you even know how radiation works?”

“I will bet you,” Stevie said, pulling out her wallet and peering inside, “forty-three dollars that you’re absolutely fine.”

“That’s what my life is worth to you? Forty-three dollars?”

“Everything I own until payday. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” David snapped. “I’ll need it when I have to sell the store because I can’t work anymore.”

“Mm. You don’t actually own the store, though.”

“Oh my god! Do you in fact hate me? Have you hated me all this time? How can you attack me like this right now?”

“Poor Patrick,” Stevie said, leaning over the check-in counter and resting her chin on her fists. “It’s going to be a hell of a week for him. Send him over here when he needs a break, okay?”

David slammed the door as he stormed out, then went back to slam it again for good measure.


	3. Chapter 3

“So Stevie and I have broken up,” David announced, when he got back to Patrick’s apartment that night. 

“Oh,” said Patrick. “Were you dating? Kind of thought we’d agreed to be exclusive.”

“Very funny. Friend-breakup. She basically accused me of overreacting to this entire thing.”

“I thought that’s what you...wanted?”

“Yesterday, yes! Today I’m waiting for _biopsy results_ , which is basically proof that I’m _not_ overreacting, so it would be nice to be taken seriously by my best friend for once!”

“Maybe she’s worried and she doesn’t know how to show it.”

“That was definitely not what came across in our conversation. Also, the anaesthetic has completely worn off and now everything hurts. A lot.” He started to throw himself into one of the armchairs, then changed his mind and sat carefully down on the edge of it.

Patrick came over and perched on the arm of the chair. “Are you hungry? I made dinner.”

“No. I’m in far too much pain to eat.” He pulled out his phone and scowled at it for a while. “What did you make?” he asked eventually.

“Chicken quesadillas and a kale salad.”

“I like those things,” David said, and leaned against him, still messing around with his phone.

“I know you do.” Patrick kissed him on the top of the head. “How about if—“

“Oh my god!” 

“Hey, okay, never mind then,” said Patrick, holding his hands up in placation as David bolted to his feet.

“No: I mean oh my god what the FUCK!” David held out his phone with two fingers as if it had just bitten him. “Stevie told Alexis! That complete...B!” 

“What? Why do you—what happened?”

“It’s on Alexis’s fucking Twitter!!”

“Oh no.” Patrick sank into the chair, looking ill.

“I can’t believe she did this! Oh god, I have to call her this second, and if she doesn’t pick up, I’m going to—”

“Wait, wait, just wait,” Patrick tried, but David was already on the phone.

“Take it down, Alexis! I swear to god, if you don’t remove that tweet immediately—how long has it been up? Yeah, thanks, that’s super sweet, but did it ever occur to you that I might not want my personal business splattered all over the entire— Oh my god. _How_ many retweets? Please tell me it’s not trending, it can’t, I’ll— Oh, well screw you very much, I’ve trended before, it’s a reasonable— I don’t care, just...delete it! YES, the Instagram and Snapchat posts too! Oh yeah? Well, so do I, now, thanks to you, and tell Stevie when you see her again that she is _literally_ dead to me forever!”

David threw down his phone. Onto the bed, because even in the midst of a major ragefest he couldn’t forget that he wasn’t going to be able to afford another one any time soon. “This is officially _the_ worst day of my entire life,” he announced. “I can’t imagine one single more thing that could possibly be more fucked up than today has been so far!”

“It wasn’t Stevie,” Patrick said quietly from the depths of the armchair. 

David shut his eyes. “Yes it was.”

“It wasn’t, David.”

“Shut up. It was. Don’t—”

“I just thought...I’m so sorry. I thought someone in your family should know, and I told her not to tell anyone, I thought I made it really really clear— 

“Okay.” David’s voice was very high-pitched. “Please stop talking.”

Patrick stopped.

“I’m going for a walk now,” David said.

“Are you?” Patrick asked doubtfully. 

David took three strides across the room and then stopped and gingerly touched his bandaged stomach. “I’m going to go outside and sit in your car for a while,” he amended.

“All right,” said Patrick, and got him the keys.

*

An hour later, Patrick knocked on the car window. David rolled it down. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’ve brought you some things,” Patrick said. “Can I come in, briefly?”

“What kind of things? Exorbitant apology gifts?”

“No, they’re more...things you might need if you plan on staying out here much longer. Can I come in?”

David thought about it. “You can get in the back seat,” he said. “I’m staying up here.”

“Fair enough.” Patrick got in with the bundle he was carrying. “First of all, I brought you some pain pills.”

“Yes please,” David said instantly, stretching out his hand.

“Well, there’s a hitch, though. You’re not supposed to take them on an empty stomach, so I also brought you some dinner.”

Another pause. “Fine,” David conceded, and took the containers Patrick passed over the seat to him. “What else?” he asked, after consuming half a quesadilla in three bites.

“A pillow and a blanket? In case you decide you want to spend the night out here. Or, if you’d rather, I can spend the night out here and you can take the bed. I’d prefer that, in fact. Thoughts?”

“Undecided,” said David. “Anything else?”

“Um, just your phone. I don’t know if you want it, but I thought I should ask. It’s been sort of…”

“Blowing up?”

“Pretty much.”

David paused to take in a few bites of kale salad. “How many text messages?”

“Fifty...three. Eighteen voicemails. And thirty-one missed calls.” The phone buzzed in Patrick’s hand. “Thirty-two. About half of them are from your parents.”

David shuddered. “Keep the phone. Pain pills now, please.”

Patrick handed them over. 

“All right. Thank you very much, you can go now.”

“Should I leave the bedding?”

“No. I’ve decided.” David shut his eyes and breathed. Out-two-three-four. “Um, I can’t really deal with...all this, and being mad at you at the same time. Plus, it’s not your fault you can’t possibly have any real conception of the true insanity of my family yet. So. I’ll come inside now. With you.”

“David,” Patrick said, in a voice that was both completely awful and completely thrilling, because he didn’t want Patrick to have to feel that way, ever, but it was nothing short of miraculous that he did.

“Yeah, just, could we not talk any more? Until tomorrow? I promise I’m not super mad at you. I’m just really really really really tired. I mean, like...really. Tired.”

“It’s been a day,” Patrick agreed. “Let’s go in and get some sleep.”

*

There was only one position that David could possibly lie in without extreme pain, and even then it wasn’t one of his favourite sleeping positions. Plus his brain was still blowing up along with his phone, which he’d had to turn actually off, so it wasn’t a very restful night. Patrick kept tossing and turning, too, and reaching out to put an arm around him before remembering at the last second and murmuring “sorry,” and finally at around five o’clock they both just gave it up.

“How are you feeling?” Patrick asked, stroking one tentative knuckle down David’s left biceps. 

“Um. Like I’ve been very slightly flayed and set on fire, in three small localized areas conveniently distributed around my body so that at least one of them is in agony at all times. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” said Patrick. “Come on, come into the bathroom and I’ll change the dressings for you.”

He leaned up against the sink and let Patrick lift his t-shirt off and peel the gauze bandaging away, so, so carefully and slowly, like he was unwrapping something highly valuable and breakable. David chewed on his lower lip and didn’t make a sound. He watched Patrick’s face, sweet and serious and a little bit worried as he checked the flayed patches for swelling and then concentrated on applying just the right amount of medically-approved ointment to each of them before covering them up again neatly.

“You can shower tonight, and maybe leave the dressings off after that,” Patrick reminded him. “Do not touch them until then, okay? I’ll cover the store today—you can stay here if you promise not to Google anything even remotely medical.”

“Stevie says I can’t possibly have skin cancer because I don’t go out in the sun enough,” David told him.

“That’s not entirely true, but you’re probably pretty low risk,” Patrick agreed. “Which is why it wouldn’t make any sense to start researching all the possibilities now.”

“Uh huh. It’s also why it’s extremely unfortunate that Alexis posted a GoFundMe all over social media yesterday to raise money for, and I quote, ‘melanoma-related expenses.’ Hashtag CancerSucks, hashtag YouCanBeatThisDavid.”

Patrick’s jaw dropped.

“What, exactly, did you say to her yesterday? Just out of curiosity.”

“I didn’t— I don’t— I texted her! Just to say that you were going through a tough time this week and might want someone to talk to about it—I wasn’t going to go into details, but she kept asking, and asking, and she promised not to tell anyone else— David, I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

“You’re a total amateur at Alexis-speak. It’s like another entire culture, I should have given you a full tutorial months ago. I’ll deal with it, don’t worry.”

Patrick still looked miserable.

“Hey. My family outed you to your own parents, remember? We can be even now.”

“That was your dad, not you. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I had no right. How are you ever going to be able to trust me now, when I—”

“Patrick,” David said, putting his arms around his neck. “Do you need me to breathe with you?”

“I’ll talk to her again,” Patrick suggested.

“No! Oh my god. No, thank you. You’re so brave, but no. You go handle the store, it should be pretty quiet on a Wednesday. I’ll cope with my family.”

*

“I _didn’t_ tell anyone!” Alexis shrilled. “Ugh, David! Tweeting is not telling! And I didn’t even use your name except in the hashtags!”

“I’m pretty sure people noticed the hashtags, Alexis! You know how I know? Because half my contacts list is sending me sympathy messages!”

“They’re sending more than just sympathy.” Alexis did a little prance with her hands. “I raised—” she checked her phone, “—eight thousand seven hundred and two dollars so far.”

David staggered back from her. “You didn’t take the GoFundMe down?! But I told you—”

“I thought you meant the posts. You said to delete the posts.”

“I meant the entire THING, obviously! Oh my god, Alexis! Take it down NOW! Why would you even do this? We don’t live in the States anymore! What kind of melanoma-related expenses would I even have!”

“Well, it’s not just you, David,” Alexis said, flicking her hair defensively. “There’s the whole family to think of. We’ll need another car, for one thing, if you’re always having to go to doctor’s appointments—”

“Oh my god.” David covered his mouth with both hands. “You actually want this to happen.”

“I do not!” Alexis stamped her foot, then stamped it again. “Ugh! That’s a horrible thing to say! I’m just being practical! Of course I don’t want you to be sick!”

They both stopped and looked at each other, then, because even Alexis seemed to suddenly realize that they weren’t squabbling over shared bathroom etiquette or closet space. “I don’t, David,” she said, sounding very young. “I really don’t.”

David turned away to straighten out some invisible creases in his bedspread. “Well. Thanks,” he said. “I’m not, I hope. I mean, it’s probably nothing.”

Alexis nodded wildly. “Mm-hm, definitely, yeah. Of course. That’s what Patrick said, too. He was so sweet, David. You’re not mad at him for telling me, are you? You can’t be. He always looks like a little kicked puppy when he thinks you’re mad at him; it’s the saddest thing ever.”

“Well, you’d know all about that, since you kick puppies every day at the vet clinic.”

Alexis gasped in delighted outrage, back on safer ground again. “That was _one time_ , David!” Just then her phone gave a sudden _ka-ching!_ and she glanced down at it. “Ooh! There’s another donation. It’s up to eight thousand eight hundred and two now.”

“Who the fuck gave the two dollars? Actually, who...who gave the most, can I...and did they, um, say anything nice about me, or— No, oh god, never mind, I don’t want to know. Just take it down, right now, give it all back. Now, before I change my mind.”

Alexis gave an exaggerated pout. “It’s a lot of money, David. Maybe we could just...you know, hold off for a few days, until you get your test results…?”

“No!”

“O _kay_! God!” Her fingers flew on her phone. “There. Ugh, I can’t believe I just gave away almost nine thousand dollars. No one would have missed it. But fine, have it your way, just like always.”

“Good.”

“Hmph.” Alexis turned her back.

“...Okay, but who did give the most?”

Alexis ignored him.

“You have to tell me. I might be dying.”

“Oh my _god_ , you’re going to pull that all week, aren’t you? Fine.” Alexis did a flouncy shoulder thing, like she’d been waiting to dish all along. “Shia LaBeouf. Three thousand.”

”Ew. He’s still obsessed with me? Well, that’s just beyond sad at this point. What about the next highest?”

“David? Is that you?” The adjoining door to their parents’ room banged open, and Moira Rose made her entrance in aubergine satin, eyes hollowed and cheeks paled with only the slightest trace of artifice. “I thought I heard your voice. Oh, David. My son. My first born,” she intoned, stretching out a hand toward him from a very safe distance.

Alexis made a disgusted huffing sound, but Moira lifted a quelling finger to her lips and continued her speech.

“David, I just want you to know that your father and I will do anything we can to support you in this time of need—not financially, of course, but I understand our dear little Alexis is taking care of that aspect. You may recall that Vivien Blake nearly lost her tongue to cancer during season eight of Sunrise Bay, so I’m quite the expert on this terrible disease—”

“That was the time she was having ‘creative differences’ with the producer and he wouldn’t let her speak on camera for a month,” David stage whispered to Alexis.

“Darling, please don’t interrupt, I’ll lose my flow.” She cleared her throat and drew herself up, apparently building to something. “I also want you to know that when the time comes, I’m prepared,” she paused weightily, perhaps gathering her energies for the break in her voice that followed, “to loan you Rocky. I know she’s always been a particular favourite of yours, and I truly believe you can pull it off.”

She drew a Joan Jett shag wig from behind her back and held it out to David with a flourish.

David turned to Alexis. “So I’ll be at Patrick’s, for the next...forever,” he told her. “Maybe you could do me a huge favour, which you definitely owe me, and try to disable their phones somehow?”


	4. Chapter 4

After leaving the motel, David thought about going straight back to Patrick’s apartment for a nap, but the prospect of being alone there all afternoon with only his anxiety for company was just depressing, so he stopped by the store first. He could cover Patrick’s lunch break, he reasoned. And maybe see if Alexis was right about him looking like a kicked puppy, because that was just too adorable to contemplate—not that he’d ever make Patrick look like that on _purpose_ , but if he did happen to resemble one, it might be a very nice temporary distraction from his troubles.

Patrick didn’t look like any kind of a puppy, though, when David arrived; if anything, he looked like an arrestingly competent but very harried herding dog, trying to corral three customers’ requests at once while another four or five queued at the register. This was also an appealing look on him, but David didn’t have time to fully appreciate it before jumping in to start ringing up the queue. Patrick made grateful eye contact and mouthed _thank you_ at him from across the room, but that was pretty much the extent of their contact for the next four hours.

“What the fuck was that?” David asked, when things finally wound down, grabbing two bottles of juice from the fridge and passing one to Patrick. Patrick didn’t even tell him off for stealing from their stock, just drained it down and wiped his brow before speaking. 

“Thanks. Needed that. You okay? That was a lot. You didn’t have to come in, you know, I’d have managed somehow...I’m really glad you did, though.” 

David was glad he had, too. He’d been much too busy to think about anything for the first time in two days. Plus, he loved his store—not as much as he loved Patrick, but a shamefully close second, and it was always thrilling to see it being appreciated. Whenever it was full of customers buying things it was as if all these people were telling him _I like your taste, you’re amazing, you’re the coolest and you look so great, I want to be more like you._ Which, apparently, he still needed to be told an embarrassing number of times.

“On a Wednesday, though!” he marveled. “We don’t even have any new stock, no promotions going on—did you take out an ad somewhere without telling me?”

“Only the Alexis Rose social media rumour blitz,” Patrick said. “I think word must have spread pretty fast before she took the posts down.”

“Oh,” said David, feeling his retail success boner completely shrivel. “Oh, fuck. Of course.” He’d forgotten that people _here_ were on Alexis’s feeds, too; he still somehow thought of social media as something that belonged to their old life. No one had said anything about it to him, but they wouldn’t, he guessed—still, he suddenly recalled that he’d had a weird number of arm touches and _you take care, now, okay?_ s from today’s clientele. 

“Hey, business is business,” said Patrick. “Silver lining, right?”

“I want people to shop here because they like it, though! Not out of pity, or because they’re being some kind of weird...tragedy voyeurs. Ew.” David did a full-body shudder.

Patrick came over to the register and put his arms around him from behind. “I think they mostly came in today because they like _you_ ,” he said, hanging his chin over David’s shoulder. “It’s called being supportive. We do that, in small towns. It’s nice. Besides, I don’t think we’d have cleared over fifteen hundred today if they didn’t actually like the store, too, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Hmm,” David said. “Well, _something_ ’s making me feel better.” He turned around and got his hands around Patrick’s waist, pulling him closer, leaning in for a kiss.

The bell rang to announce another customer. “Closed, sorry,” David called out without looking around, though they weren’t, actually, for another ten minutes. “Come back tomorrow!”

“Well, fuck,” said Stevie. “I don’t know if I can stand it, I’ve been having such an intense craving for—” she picked up a jar from the counter and read the label, “—lemon sugar wax melts. Mmm. Sure you can’t sell me just one?”

“I’ve got a...thing, in the back, I’ll just—” Patrick gently extricated himself from David’s grasp and disappeared into the stockroom.

“Okay, to be clear, those are actually not food, they’re home fragrance enhancers,” David told Stevie. “Although enough other people have also made that mistake that I was able to verify with our vendor that they technically are edible in the sense that they’re non-poisonous. Really not super tasty, though.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I wasn’t actually planning on buying anything.”

“So why are you here, then?” David asked, folding his arms.

Stevie fiddled with the lemon sugar wax melts jar for a minute, then put it back onto the counter, sighed, squared her shoulders, and looked straight into his eyes. “Health scares suck,” she said. “I’m sorry if I seemed unsympathetic yesterday.”

David wasn’t sure what to do with his face. “Well, that’s...disarmingly sincere,” he said after a while.

“I know, right? I’m so used to giving you shit—which you almost always entirely deserve—but it wasn’t actually one hundred percent appropriate this time, so. Yep. Kinda weird.”

“Okay, but now you’re slightly scaring me?” said David. “Are you saying you actually think I might have cancer or something, or—”

“Oh, hell no,” said Stevie. “You’re still gonna be giving me forty-three dollars next week. I don’t lose bets. I’m just saying, I’d probably be losing my marbles, too, if it were me. Anyone would.”

“Well, my marbles are all completely accounted for, in fact,” David said. “Almost completely, but thanks. That’s very nice of you.”

“You’re welcome. Also, it really sucks that you had to have biopsies. Three of them, god, were you dying? Did they have to, like, hold you down?”

“Oh my god! It was so incredibly vile!” David flapped his hands and did a sort of dance step of ecstasy at getting to finally express the magnitude of the ordeal he’d endured. “It still hurts like a son of a bitch, too.”

“Well, _yeah_ , they basically carved pieces out of you, I’m not surprised. Oh, hey, that reminds me: brought you a present.” Stevie fished in her shirt pocket and brought out a decently sized and only slightly bent joint. “I was saving it to help me get through my cousin’s kid’s first communion party, but I think you and Patrick need it more.”

*

“I love Stevie,” David said that night, with his head in Patrick’s lap. “And I love showers. So, so much. I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to be actually clean. Mostly I love Stevie, though. And you!” David coughed slightly and took another quick hit. “Obviously you, a lot. More than a lot. I love you,” he said, putting a hand up to Patrick’s face and trying to psychically transmit how much he meant it, “more than the store.”

“More than the _store_ ,” said Patrick. “Whoa. Sure about that?”

David nodded very quickly, many times. “I am utterly sure about that. And I really fucking love that store. You should have some of this,” he added, sitting up suddenly and holding the joint out to Patrick.

“But you’re so cute when you’re high,” Patrick, who didn’t usually partake himself, told him. “Kind of just enjoying the show here.”

“Well, that’s not fair. Maybe I want a show, too.”

“You do, huh?” Patrick leaned over and kissed him—a little more salaciously than tenderly, cupping his hand around the back of David’s head, fingers pressing at the base of his skull. One of these days, David was going to get around to making a colour-coded chart of all the different ways Patrick made him feel when he kissed him. He could see this one clearly, just behind his eyes: a warm golden yellow with little licks of deep purple bleeding in from the edges. 

“Maybe just a little,” Patrick said, rescuing the joint from David’s fingers just before he dropped it.

David sat back to watch him take a hit and felt like his own eyes were growing anime-character size. “Wow. I almost wish cigarettes in general were less disgusting, because the sight of you smoking is just unfairly hot.”

“What, you mean like this?” Patrick undid two of the buttons on his shirt, disheveled his hair a little, and camped it up as he took another long drag on the joint, leaning back against the head of the bed and making sultry eyes at David while he inhaled, held it, then blew the smoke slowly out through the side of his mouth.

“...Yeah,” said David, and swallowed hard. “Um, I know you’re just trying to fuck around, but that’s actually doing things to me.”

“Is it?” The look in Patrick’s eyes went from trying not to give away laughter to softly interested. David bit his lip and nodded slowly. “Come here,” Patrick said, putting out the joint on a saucer and setting it aside.

A few minutes later, the kissing had deepened to navy and indigo with intense lightning streaks of scarlet and David was starting to make whimpery little urgent sounds into Patrick’s mouth when Patrick broke it off and sat back. 

“We shouldn’t,” he said regretfully. “Not tonight, not yet, you’re still—”

“Oh, we very much should, though,” David insisted, lunging for him again, but Patrick put a hand on the center of his chest to hold him off.

“—Supposed to take it easy for a few days,” Patrick went on, “which you didn’t today at the store. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I am feeling _no_ pain right now. Trust me.” 

“That doesn’t mean...” Patrick started, but trailed off as David moved Patrick’s hand down to let him feel how hard he’d made him. Patrick traced the shape of him through his pants and groaned a little, a sound which went straight to David’s cock and made him even harder. He got his own right hand inside of Patrick’s mostly open shirt and found one of his nipples, flicking a thumbnail over it and then pinching it gently, rolling it slowly between finger and thumb until Patrick cried out.

“God, you really know—exactly how to drive me crazy, don’t you?” he said raggedly. “Okay, no, just wait. Take this off and let me see you first.” He lifted at the hem of David’s sweater, and David pulled it off obligingly along with the t-shirt beneath. 

He held still and let Patrick look at his wounds—ugh, there really wasn’t another good word for them—and make sure they hadn’t turned black or anything since he’d seen them that morning. Which shouldn’t have been hot at all, and yet. It was so fucked up, David knew, but he thought maybe he actually did slightly get off on being worried over. Maybe it was just the novelty of it. In any case, it was a relief when Patrick started kissing his stomach very softly, not on the hurt place but just around and below it: a much less complicated sort of pleasure.

“Don’t move,” Patrick instructed. “Just—hold really still, okay?” 

“Okay,” David breathed, and tried not to die as Patrick moved lower, kissing a trail down his stomach and pausing to look up at him before lowering his head again and nosing at him through the fabric of his pants, undoing the drawstring with sure, slow hands.

He was trying not to move, trying not to thrust, and it felt like forever before Patrick finally eased down his pants and underwear, hands still calm and steady as he exposed him, taking his time about it. Patrick wasn’t teasing, David understood, just being exceptionally careful, and he held David’s hips down to keep him still while he pressed gentle exploratory kisses around the head of his cock and then, another geological age later, took it into his mouth and began going deep.

It was perfection, it was agony, and time was doing that thing it did for David sometimes when he was high, where every second seemed to stretch out endlessly in its colours and textures, until he wanted to cry with sensation. He was rapidly devolving into a quivering formless mess, but Patrick’s mouth was so warm and sweet, enveloping him, torturing him and keeping him safe, and it was all so perfectly emblematic that David nearly orgasmed from the aesthetic rightness of it.

“Oh,” he said. “Stop— I’m, it’s too much, it’s too—” He hardly knew what he was saying, but Patrick stopped instantly, of course he did, and that was too much, too.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” Patrick looked worried again, and David was definitely going to die of it; it was amazing.

“No,” he gasped. “Oh my god, you actually do look a little like a puppy right now—no, forget I said that, do-over, I’m just having a sort of spiritual meltdown, or possibly a panic attack, I think, but a good one? Is that a thing? Anyway, can you just—slow down a tiny bit, please, because you’re going to make me come and I need to breathe for just one minute so my head doesn’t explode when that happens.”

Even as he was speaking David was aware that this was the kind of thing that people didn’t like to hear during sex, or ever, really, the kind of thing that led to _you’re just a bit too intense for me, you know, you’re a lot to handle_ , but Patrick just looked at him like there was no end to his delight and amusement at being incoherently babbled at mid-blowjob. 

“I can slow down,” he assured David. “I’ll do whatever you need. Tell me what you need.”

“Fuck,” David said, because it was like being verbally edged, the hotness of Patrick saying that to him when he was already so— “Okay, I think I need to come in the next...three minutes, actually, so you can make that happen, now, if you want.”

“I’ll think about it,” Patrick said. His eyes were very dark and still amused, and he glanced over at the drawer where they kept the lube. “Can you keep holding still if I finger you while you come in my mouth?”

David’s stomach dropped with a jolt and the colours in his brain all went white for a few moments. His cock twitched with the need to be back inside Patrick’s mouth, his neat and innocent-looking, utterly filthy mouth. “Can I rim you after, while you fuck my hand?” he countered, somehow managing to keep his voice light, as if they were debating over next morning’s breakfast options.

“Wow, your negotiation skills have really come a long way lately, ” Patrick said, not quite steadily now, David noticed with deep satisfaction, because making Patrick’s smooth, self-assured facade crack open was basically the best thing in the entire universe. “I think we can come to some kind of arrangement along those lines.” 

*

All in all, it ended up being at least nine thousand times better of a day than it had started out, so there was that.


	5. Chapter 5

The trouble was, there were still five to eight more days to get through somehow, and the next few of them were infinitely less dramatic and more tedious. Business leveled off as the word spread around town that reports of David Rose’s impending demise had been greatly exaggerated. David’s phone stopped blowing up, which he resented more than he should have. And newly healing biopsy sites itched like a motherfucker, it turned out, especially the one on his back, for some reason. 

“Stop scratching,” Patrick told him, at least once an hour, and came over and lifted up the back of David’s shirt to rub ointment into the spot, which was so enjoyable that David began scratching even which he didn’t itch. When Patrick figured out what he was doing, he was, for once, not amused. 

“You’re going to actually hurt yourself,” he said. “You know what’s even worse than open wounds? _Suppurating_ wounds.”

“That was very uncalled for!” David gasped, covering his ears. “Oh my god. Calm down. I wasn’t even scratching hard.”

“Sorry.” Patrick rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry. I’m just...tired.”

“Tell me about it.” David stifled a yawn. “I mean, not that there’s any reason to be tired. I’m definitely not. Should I get some tea? I’ll go get us both some tea from the cafe. Be right back!” 

Because admitting to spending an awful lot of time lately lying awake in the dark would be basically admitting to worrying, and there was obviously _nothing to worry about_. There really wasn’t, and David believed that, but he believed it a lot more when it wasn’t three in the morning.

Alexis and Ted were sitting at a window table in the cafe, he saw when he was nearly to the front door, but it was too late to turn back; they’d seen him. He kept his sunglasses on and walked straight over the counter to order when he got in, as though he could reasonably pretend he hadn’t noticed them, but Ted called out “David!” as he was paying for the teas and waved him over cheerfully. Alexis shushed him, then grabbed Ted’s hand and forced it down, glaring at him, so David decided to go over and say hi after all, just to annoy her. 

“I’m sorry, don’t you have some puppies to kick, or, like, interesting deathbed looks to shop for online?” Alexis asked him.

“Wow, who pissed in your smoothie? I’m the one who had a reason to be mad at you, the last I checked.” David glanced at Ted, who looked like he might spontaneously dissolve from the awkwardness of being forced to participate in this public display of Rose family drama. “Do you really want to do this here?”

“You know, gosh, look at the time, I’ve really got to get back to the clinic and spay...something, I’m pretty sure, so...good to see you, David, we’ll have to...soon, right? Okay, bye!” Ted kissed Alexis, who accepted it without breaking her death glare at her brother, and went up to pay the check.

“Ew, David, stop checking out my boyfriend’s ass. You’re in enough trouble with me already.”

“I wasn’t!” David said, although he might have been, reflexively; he wasn’t _blind_. “Okay, what the hell, Alexis?” He sat down at the table.

Alexis turned away from him. 

“Fine, I’m out.” David started to get up, but Alexis swung back around and glared at him some more.

“Sure, run away, David. You’re so good at that these days.”

“Oh my god, what is this about? I’m at _work_ , I’m working, I just ran over to get tea!”

“Yeah. Well.” Alexis pretended to be interested in her phone. “You’re being really mean to Mom and Dad right now, and I don’t appreciate it.”

David looked around the cafe. “Is this a prank? Are we on film? Or did I step through an alternate dimension portal on my way over here just now?”

“I’m serious! They’re all, like, sad and quiet—”

David made several wildly disbelieving gestures.

“Okay, quiet for _them,_ ” Alexis continued, “And Dad says things like ‘Let’s let him have his space, he’ll get in touch when he’s ready,’ and Mom found this picture that she thinks is you as a baby and keeps sighing all over it—”

“There aren’t any. You mean the one with the feather boa and the Louboutins? That’s you! I took that picture!”

“I know that, obviously, but she doesn’t. Anyway, they’re just being super clingy and annoying, and guess who gets to deal with that all the time when you’re not around?”

“So don’t!” David waved his arm at the door. “Go hang out at Ted’s! Why are you being such a martyr?”

“Um, because they’re actually worried and I’m trying to make them feel better?”

“What? Why! They’re not! Alexis. Do you not remember the time you came back from that Abercrombie shoot in Laos with double pneumonia and a kidney infection, and they were both traveling and didn’t even come visit you in the hospital?”

“They sent a really nice card,” Alexis sniffed. 

“I sent it! I signed their names! I could barely even write in cursive yet; how did you actually believe it was from them?”

“Well, I was only six, David! Anyway, they worry about you more, they’ve always—”

“Nuh-uh. No. How about when I was sixteen and nearly died of appendicitis because Mom kept telling me it was indigestion and giving me Tic Tacs as placebos until you got scared and called 911?”

“Oh my god, that was so bad,” Alexis agreed. “Okay, but David? They’ve changed. You know they’ve changed. Things are different now.”

So let them suffer a little, David thought. Let them suffer like we did. But he didn’t want to say that to Alexis, who was all on fire to defend them. She’d always been softer on them. Still, _she_ had really changed, if anyone had, and it probably wasn’t fair to leave her to deal with their parents all on her own.

“Fine, I’ll text them or something,” he sighed, getting up from the table. “I’ve seriously got to get back to the store now. I told Patrick I’d bring him tea, and it’s going to be all cold.”

*

Patrick wasn’t waiting anxiously for the tea. He didn’t even look up when David came back and the door chime jingled. Patrick had fallen asleep in front of his laptop. David smiled, put the teas down, and went over to surprise him awake with a kiss on the nape of his neck.

He froze, though, three steps away, when he glanced at Patrick’s laptop screen and saw the words _Stages of Melanoma_ on it. 

David went back around to the other side of the counter and coughed, loudly, and Patrick startled and closed his laptop faster than David had ever done at fourteen when he was looking up _underwear models, any gender_ on Infoseek and the maid had walked in on him.

“Sleeping on the job?” he asked Patrick, trying to will his voice to sound light and teasing. “I’m going to have to put this in your performance review, mister.”

“Yeah, wow.” Patrick blinked. “Sorry, I _thought_ someone was supposed to be bringing me tea. Thanks,” he said, taking the cup David handed to him and sipping. “Mmm. Nice and lukewarm, just how I like it.”

“I ran into Alexis at the cafe,” David explained. “Extreme awkwardness. Hey, you know…”

“Hmm?” Patrick said into his tea.

“You know how you said we’d play games this week. Maybe invite people?”

“I did say that.” Patrick perked up slightly. “Yeah, we should, we definitely should. Who do you want to invite?”

“Stevie, obviously. Alexis, reluctantly. Ted, since I promise we won’t be playing Spin the Bottle…”

“Hey now,” Patrick said, smiling a little again.

“And I thought, maybe, my parents?”

Patrick’s eyebrows were doing a thing, but he said, “Yeah? I think that would be nice, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh, it will not be nice,” David told him. “It will be, quite frankly, a nightmare.”

“So why invite them?”

David considered what to say. “You know when you’ve got a hangover so bad that your hair hurts and you can’t stay upright for more than ten seconds without gagging, so to distract yourself you try to pierce one of your own nipples with a thumbtack?”

“Is that how you got that scar? I’ve wondered. Is the hangover that bad, though, still?” Patrick took one of David’s hands and began massaging the back of it with his thumb. 

“Well, maybe it’s not _that_ bad,” David said cautiously. “How’s yours?”

“Mine?” Patrick put on a bemused expression. “I’m not...I’m not hungover. There’s nothing to be hung over about, in my opinion. You know that.” He touched his closed laptop, then slid it out of sight under the countertop. Such a bad liar. “I respect the fact that you might be feeling hungover, though. So, games night with your parents it is, because I really prefer your nipples the way they are.”

*

Patrick was a planner, David told himself; he always had to have a map, a schedule, an alternate map, and a fallback schedule. And he wouldn’t want David to think there was anything to worry about, so he’d never admit to having any concerns of his own. He’d only feel terrible if David called him out on it, and then they’d both spiral. So, in theory, it was a solid enough idea to try to drive them both crazy in a more controlled way by planning a Sunday night game night at Patrick’s apartment. 

Stevie arrived first, fifteen minutes early by invitation, because Patrick was out picking up snacks and David needed her to be preemptively sarcastic about things if he was going to survive the evening. “What are we playing?” she asked. “Because if it’s strip poker, we are gonna need a lot more booze than this.”

“Um, strip poker with my parents? We’d need a lot more _heroin_ than this. Also an ice pick, for my eyes. We’re playing Monopoly. Patrick’s got one of the vintage Canadian editions.”

“I’m the beaver,” Stevie said instantly.

“No one’s the beaver. The beaver is out of play. Trust me, it’s for the best.”

“Monopoly, though? Is that really ever for the best?”

David sighed and ticked off the points on his fingers. “We can’t play any team games because there’s an uneven number of us, we can’t play anything with complicated rules because my mother will lose her shit, we can’t play a drinking game because Ted, and there aren’t that many other games you can play with seven people. Everyone knows Monopoly, and it takes long enough that we’ll only have to play one game, argue about it just enough to keep everyone occupied for two to three hours, and then go home without actual bloodshed.”

“You’ve thought this through,” Stevie conceded.

“Well, _obviously._ ”

“I want to be the beaver, though.”

“No one’s being the beaver. It’s offensive.”

“I’m glad you invited your parents,” Stevie told him. “It’s sweet.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” David demanded. “Should I have a drink now? I think I need a drink now.”

“Yeah, pour me one, too. I like your parents. They’re hilarious. And they actually like being around you, which is pretty nuts, you have to admit.”

“Oh, thanks!”

Stevie ignored him and kept going, apparently not caring that she was about to get a highball glass lobbed at her head. “Seriously, I know they were a freak show to grow up with, but I mean. They’re here for you _now_ , right? And sometimes it’s good to not judge people based on who they were years ago. Like, if they were engaged to some cute little redhead, or if they were nothing but an annoying snobbish clothes horse with no real friends.”

“What the actual fuck,” David said. “I thought you were going to be nice to me while I was waiting for these stupid test results.”

Stevie made a face. “What would give you that idea?” 

Patrick came back with the snacks, then, and Alexis and Ted showed up with flowers (obviously chosen by Ted) and daiquiri mix (obviously chosen by Alexis), and everything was busy and okay for a while. And then his parents showed up, which was sort of awful, but at least there were a lot of other people around talking and laughing and eating and mixing disgusting daiquiris in the background as a minimal distraction.

“David!” His father came right over and hugged him, for at least fifteen seconds too long. “You’re looking well. I mean, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be, of course!”

“Oh my god, Dad,” David whispered. 

“John,” Moira reprimanded. “I told you he wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“There’s no _it_ to not talk about!” David said, about two pitches more shrilly than he intended to, and Patrick came over and squeezed his shoulder while he shook his parents’ hands.

“Patrick, you have a lovely home. So...homely,” Moira said. “It reminds me of a college dormitory where I once spent some time with a certain young man myself. It was years before I met your father, David, I don’t know why you’re making that unattractive expression.”

Johnny went straight past Patrick’s outstretched hand and enveloped him in another awkwardly long hug. “Thanks for looking after our son. It really means so much. And for welcoming us into your very nice—oh, goodness, that’s the bed, right there, is it? Where you...sleep, of course! And so forth, I don’t mean to imply that you wouldn’t, in the privacy of your own—”

“ _Dad!_ Ew!” Alexis cut in. “Come and have a daiquiri.”

Patrick was almost openly struggling to hold back laughter, and David wanted to murder him; he could find another boyfriend, eventually, maybe in another thirty-five years.

“Okay, since we’re all here, let’s get started!” he announced loudly. “Everyone take their assigned seat, please. The game is Monopoly, I assume you’re all familiar, and in order to avoid starting off with an hour-long argument, I have randomly assigned everyone a player token. Ted, you’re the dog; Alexis is the car; Stevie, you’re the guy on the horse, or should I say pony; Mom, please take the top hat; Dad, you’re the iron; Patrick is the thimble, and I’m the shoe, even though it’s one I frankly wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

He’d said _caught dead_ right out loud, but his guests apparently had other concerns.

“Totally random, huh?” said Stevie. 

“Completely,” David insisted.

“Vroom vroom.” Alexis did a smug little shimmy. “Patrick should be the puppy dog, though.”

“I’m usually the beaver,” Patrick protested. “It’s my set! I got it when I was eight!” 

“No one is the beaver. The beaver is going to guard the jail, in order to avoid childish arguments and crude innuendo.”

“I wanted to be the beaver, too,” Stevie told Patrick. 

“You can be the dog, if you want,” Ted offered. “I always seem to end up with the dog.”

“Can I trade you for the iron?” Johnny asked.

“Oh my god! No trading! This is exactly what I wanted to avoid!” David said, getting excited, and everyone quieted down right away, which was...disquieting. “Let’s just play, okay?” he went on, and everyone murmured agreement and settled down to the game.

It was mainly fine for a while, after that, except that his mother kept smelling and fondling her money wistfully, and Ted and Alexis were clearly much more interested in each other than anything else in the room and had to be reminded when it was either of their turns. Stevie kept getting sent to jail, on purpose in order to spend more time with the beaver, she claimed, and his dad wouldn’t stop bragging about his wheeling and dealing skills and insisting he ought to have a handicap, because it really wasn’t fair on the rest of them. 

He did look sort of older than usual and maybe tired, David noticed suddenly, and his mother was being very toned-down today, for her. They were clearly making an effort. This should have been a pleasant surprise, but it wasn’t, somehow. It felt horrible. He wished they didn’t know about the biopsies. Also, his dad was losing at Monopoly very badly, since his amazing strategy consisted of nothing more than banking on being able to purchase the most expensive properties, which were almost all bought up already. He did own Granville Street, but David rolled a seven on his next turn and landed on Douglas. 

Alexis, who’d been paying attention to the gameplay for a change, gave him a pleading look across the table, and David crossed his eyes slightly and flared his nostrils at her. “I’ll pass,” he said. “I’m saving for the railroads,” he explained to Patrick. “I like the railroads.”

Johnny chuckled. “Still not a businessman, are you, son? You’re going to have to develop a more cutthroat instinct than that if you want to stay afloat for long. Take some lessons from Patrick, here—he knows what he’s about. You can tell just by the way he plays the game that he was paying attention in business school.”

“Mm hm,” said David, biting both his lips and nodding, and Moira caught his eye and blew him a tiny kiss.

Patrick, who’d somehow managed to buy up all the red properties and build hotels on Yonge and Bay Street already, was watching all of them with sharp interest. “Who’s ready for another round?” he asked. “David, come give me a hand? Can you get me another couple of glasses from that top shelf?”

David followed him into the kitchen and opened the tall cabinet, and when he turned around with the glasses, Patrick was right there, holding the cupboard door open for a minute so they could kiss, screened from view of the others. It was a surprisingly passionate kiss, and afterward Patrick bit him lightly on the ear and murmured, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero?”

“No Bette Midler,” David cautioned him. “You know the rules. But yes, I am very heroic on occasion,” he agreed, and felt warmer and less horrible.

The game finally ended two hours later, when Patrick’s neighbours knocked to ask if the shouting was going to stop any time soon. Johnny was now winning, with Patrick at a distant second. Moira was clinging to her last $500 bill as if it might turn real if she hoped hard enough, but the rest of them were all bankrupt, and Stevie was holding the beaver ransom and trying to get Patrick to buy it back from her.

“Walk me to the car,” Moira told David, taking his arm, and the horrible feeling came back a bit, but all she said was, “David, you’ll be fine, I know, no matter what happens. You’re in excellent hands. Call us when you have any news.” 

*

“So that was game night with your parents,” Patrick said, when they’d finally cleaned up and gone to bed. “I can’t even imagine a more blood-curdling nightmare.”

“It was terrible,” David said flatly. “Much worse than I thought. They were being all _nice_ on purpose. They’re actually worried about me, Alexis was right, and I hate it. I hate everything.” He pulled the covers all the way over his head. 

Patrick pulled the covers down and kissed David on the forehead, then lay down next to him and sighed up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry they found out,” he said. “I can see how that would be...more difficult, for you, for all of you, really, but I guess I’m also a little bit glad they know. Maybe it’s good for them to be a little worried. Maybe it’s good for you to know they’re worried? Maybe I’m just trying to justify it because it’s my fault they found out?”

David put a pillow over his own face. “This conversation is very emotionally confusing and I want it to stop,” he said, mostly into the pillow.

“Okay,” said Patrick, and slid a hand up David’s shirt, just resting it on his stomach, thumb brushing up and down a little, warm and steady.

“ _You’re_ not worried,” David said, still into the pillow.

Patrick’s thumb stilled. “There’s nothing to be worried about,” he said. “Come on, take that thing off your face, you can’t breathe like that.”

David removed the pillow and sat up briefly to turn out the light, then put Patrick’s hand back where it had been and covered it with his own. “Thanks for letting my dad win,” he said grudgingly. 

“Any time,” said Patrick. “Good night, David.”


	6. Chapter 6

“It’s been seven days,” David said, on Tuesday morning. Patrick wasn’t quite awake yet, so David got on top of him and straddled him, leaning over to press their foreheads together. “Seven days,” he repeated. “Did you hear me? Are you awake?”

“Mm,” Patrick said, without opening his eyes. “Six and a half.”

“That’s a gross technicality.” David sat up, still straddling Patrick’s hips, and craned his neck down to try to look at his own collarbone. “Do you think this is going to scar? I need your completely honest opinion.” 

“Hope so.” Patrick still had his eyes closed and sounded mostly asleep. “Sexy scars.”

“Uh, I’m not a cowboy, Patrick. Come on, actually look.” He bounced once.

“Okay, that’s my bladder,” Patrick said, patient but pained. “Maybe not the best plan at this hour.”

“Sorry.” David climbed off of him. “Look, though. I need to know.”

Patrick opened his eyes halfway and appeared to be trying to focus them. David would have felt badly about waking him like this, except that A) it was exceptionally rare that he woke up before Patrick did and B) he looked so sweetly exhausted and discombobulated that it was impossible to feel anything but joy at getting to witness this much sleepy gorgeousness at close proximity. 

Also, it was day seven, which meant that their endless crisis of insanity was about to be over. Unless it wasn’t. David had done a mostly good job of locking all that Unless in a box and shoving it into a dark corner, though, and focusing on more present concerns. Such as potentially disastrous scarring.

“Wait, what was the question again?” Patrick said. “Why are we awake at,” he squinted at the bedside clock, “six-thirty a.m., when we don’t have to be up for another hour and a half?”

“I can’t sleep. This could require a serious overhaul of my entire wardrobe. Turtlenecks are not my best look; it’s important.”

“Right,” Patrick said, after a pause. “Just a minute, then, let me…” His eyelids drifted closed again, and David was afraid he was falling back asleep, but Patrick rolled over and hauled himself up and walked clumsily over to the bathroom. He came back three minutes later, smelling of mint toothpaste and lemon soap and with his eyes almost fully open, and got back into bed, climbing up on top of David to study his collarbone very seriously. “I really don’t think it’ll scar,” he said finally. “It looks a little less red today. You just have to keep using the ointment, remember, make sure you keep it--”

“No! Don’t say it!” David tried to cover his ears, but Patrick’s knees were pinning his wrists to his sides.

Patrick leaned in closer. _”Moist,”_ he finished. “What? I’m just quoting from the aftercare pamphlet. It’s very important to keep the area moist. Moisture is the key. If you don’t keep it--”

David got one of his hands free and clamped it quickly over Patrick’s mouth, and Patrick said “moist,” very wetly into his palm, so it was _on him_ now; David snatched his hand away and wiped it on Patrick’s pillow.

“You know that word causes me actual, physical pain!”

“Then why did you wake me up at the crack of dawn and force me to say it?” Patrick still looked tired around the eyes, but they were bright with laughter now, too, and David was definitely going to have to kiss him soon, even though he’d just used that mouth to say practically his least favourite word in existence. It was so unfair. They did have an hour and a half before they needed to get up, though.

*

There were a lot of vendor pickups that morning and it was David’s turn to do them, which was good; better than sitting around at the store all day waiting for his phone to ring. He was a tiny bit nervous about what would happen if the doctor’s office called him during one of the vendor pickups, but probably they wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to say anything about it, but Patrick had apparently had the same thought.

“They said seven _to ten_ days,” Patrick reminded him, before he left, looking edgy.

“I know,” David said. “Although, seriously, ten? It wouldn’t be ten days. Seven to ten, that’s just something they say, right?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. If they do call you this morning, though.” Patrick looked even more on edge. “Maybe don’t...maybe, if you’re driving around, don’t pick up, let them leave a message and call them back when you’re—”

“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’m not worried.” He went over to Patrick and took his face in his hands and kissed him. “It’ll be _fine,_ ” he repeated, looking straight into Patrick’s eyes. 

“Of course it will,” Patrick agreed, but he still looked very tired.

*

“They didn’t call yet!” David hollered out when he got back to the store that afternoon, and Patrick came out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans. 

“Who didn’t call? Were you expecting a call? I’d forgotten.”

“Very funny,” David said. “Come help me with these boxes, they weigh a ton, and I haven’t even had lunch yet, so—”

His phone rang, tucked in his back pocket, and they both looked at each other wide-eyed for two seconds. Then David fumbled the phone out with suddenly shaking hands, bobbled it for a moment, somehow didn’t drop it, and groaned when he saw the screen. _“Alexis,”_ he said, as if his sister’s name were a swear word.

“Why would you call me right now?” he demanded into the phone. “No, nothing yet, but why would you _call me_ , knowing that I’m expecting a potentially life-altering phone call today? You could text! Text me, like a normal person! No one calls! Yeah, I will, if I don’t die of a heart attack first from having to answer unexpected phone calls at the worst time anyone could possibly—”

Alexis had hung up in a huff, and David made a frustrated sound at the phone and tucked it back into his pocket. Patrick had gone outside as soon as David had answered the call, and came back in with his arms full of boxes.

“All this stuff is going to need labeling,” Patrick pointed out. “If you need something to do to stay busy, after you eat.”

David thought about saying he wasn’t hungry anymore, which was true, but that would have been worrisome for Patrick, probably, so he went and got a smoothie from the cafe and brought it back to the store. They spent the rest of the day unpacking, labeling, and organizing all the new stock.

The phone didn’t ring again.

*

They got Thai takeout that night, or what passed for it in Schitt’s Creek, and ate it out of the containers in front of the television, because some days were just like that, and they were both too tired to care about being gross and trashy.

“It’s not going to be _ten_ days,” David said suddenly in the middle of _Clueless_ (Patrick’s third rewatch, David’s nine thousand and third, probably, but he’d needed something comforting). “Patrick? Not ten days. That would just be cruel and unusual. Right?”

Patrick had fallen asleep, still sitting mostly upright on the sofa with his chopsticks still in his hand. David took them away, very gently, along with the remainder of his congealing Pad See Ew, and covered him up with his favourite hideous fleece Maple Leafs blanket that had almost made them break up that one time.

It wasn’t a good night, not with Patrick on the couch; as tired as David was, he couldn’t seem to get to sleep. The box marked Unless in the dark corner of his mind seemed to be rattling the chains he’d used to lock it shut, and things were going to start oozing out around the edges if he didn’t keep a careful watch on it, terrible things he didn’t want Patrick to see. It was half a dream and half waking nightmare that seemed to last most of the night, until he finally slid into a deeper dreamless sleep around daybreak.

When he woke, it was eight-thirty and Patrick was dressed already, leaning over to kiss him good morning and goodbye. “Hey, beautiful,” Patrick said softly, soft-eyed, watching him. 

“Don’t mock me,” David croaked. “I slept like shit. I’ve probably got bags like knockoff Balenciagas.”

“Never,” Patrick said, stroking a thumb up his cheekbone. “I’m leaving to go open now. Go back to sleep, if you can. Come in whenever.”

David hummed noncommittally but didn’t answer, and after a while he heard Patrick leaving the apartment, very quietly in case he’d dropped off again already. He tried, for a while, but it was no use. He was awake now, and if he stayed here on his own all morning he was definitely going to have six panic attacks one after the other, so after a while he screamed into his pillow and then got up and showered and went to the store.

*

“They didn’t call yet,” David said as soon as he walked in, even though Patrick was with a customer and only acknowledged him with a tiny lift of his chin. David went straight into the stockroom with his coffee. When the customer had left, he came out again and said, “Do you have the number for the doctor’s office, actually? Didn’t they give us a card? I’m going to call them, I think. Just to see if they might have any idea when, or if maybe they forgot yesterday?”

“Oh,” Patrick said. “No, don’t do that.”

David frowned. “Why the hell not? It’s a reasonable question. It’s allowed! You’re allowed to call your own dermatologist. I’m pretty sure.”

“No, I mean…” Patrick looked out the window. “I mean don’t call them because I just did. About half an hour ago.”

David thought for the next few seconds that he might black out. He wasn’t sure, because he’d never blacked out before without substances being involved, but it felt similar, the wavery ringing, the sudden unreality.

“They didn’t tell me anything!” Patrick said quickly. “They didn’t have—they said maybe later today but most likely tomorrow. God, you look— Sit down, come on, here.” He guided David to a chair and pressed him into it, and David put his head between his knees and breathed while Patrick went to get water.

“What did they say exactly?” David said, when he’d drunk some of the water and his heart had quit racing quite so hard. “Did you...did you tell them you were me?”

 _“No,”_ Patrick said vehemently. “You can’t think I’d...David, god!”

“Sorry,” David said quickly. “I’m sorry. I just thought...I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t be,” Patrick started to say, and just then the door chimed open as a customer came in, and David looked up. It was Jocelyn.

“We’re closed,” Patrick said—snapped, really. “Family emergency, sorry.”

“Oh my god,” said David. “Don’t do that. We’re not closed, Jocelyn, it’s fine—what do you need?”

“You poor boys,” Jocelyn said, looking uncertainly from one to the other of them. “Everything all right? I know you’ve had a lot to cope with lately.”

“Yes, we’re perfectly fine,” David said smoothly, getting up, because if there was anything he’d learned from growing up with Moira as a formative role model, it was how to wipe the blood off and keep dancing. “Looking for some more of that tea? We did get another shipment in just yesterday. He swears up and down it’s legal, but I’m really not sure; maybe you want to test drive it for me?”

He upsold Jocelyn a six-pack of kelp bath bombs along with the tea and the wine she’d come in for, and when she’d left he looked around for Patrick and found him polishing a groove into one of the countertops, head down and shoulders tense.

“She would have gone out and told the entire town,” David said. “She’d have a prayer circle organized before dinnertime.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Patrick sounded shaky and looked like he might break or bolt away if David touched him, but he went over to him and put a tentative hand between his shoulderblades anyway; he couldn’t help it.

“Are you okay?”

“Um, not exactly.” Patrick tried to laugh. “I’m fucking this up. I’m fucking this whole thing up. I’m so bad at this.”

“Oh, no, hey,” David said, more surprised than anything at first, and then it hit him like a shock, like a blow, how much he wanted to gather Patrick up and make everything okay for him. He could, maybe. He’d done it before. “Okay, so we _are_ closed, then,” he said, and went over to flip the sign and lock the door. “Screw the prayer circle; let them do their worst.” He went back to Patrick and enfolded him, and they didn’t talk for a while.

*

 _Nothing yet?_ Stevie texted him that night.

 **n** David replied.  
**Tomorrow probably**  
**Not that ur worried ofc**

_I’m being supportive. It’s something friends do_

**Did u read that in a magazine for teen girls?**

_Wow, you’re salty tonight_  
_I thought you’d be freaking right now_

**I’m weirdly not so much but Patrick is**

_BS_

**He actually is**  
**He melted down and scared the shit out of me**  
**We closed the store early**

_BULLSHIT_  
...  
_srsly???_

**y**

_Aw, Patrick_  
_Are you taking care of him?_

**y, bc I am very nurturing like that**  
**Also it’s nice to be the one who isn’t acting like a lunatic for a change**

_Oh I wouldn’t say that_

**thx b**

_Did you just call me a b??_

**sry typo!**

_w/e, b_  
_ILU guys_  
_Hang in there_  
_And get that $43 ready, I need it_

David texted her an upside down smiley, a middle finger, and a heart, then set the phone down; it was at 2%, and he couldn’t go charge it. Patrick had fallen asleep on his chest.

*

They had gone back to Patrick’s apartment and talked a lot, before he’d fallen asleep, and it was raw and messy and awful, but better than pretending nothing was wrong.

“This whole thing has been making me crazy,” Patrick had admitted. “It scares me. I’m scared. I know it’s irrational, but just the possibility... I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you that until after. And now you’re the one having to reassure me, which is just...god, I really didn’t want to tell you any of this.”

“I do know how anxiety works,” David assured him. “It’s okay. Besides, I'd be kind of offended if you actually weren’t at all worried.”

“Yeah, a...a normal amount of worry is good. Um. Getting maybe three hours of sleep every night and throwing up in the bathroom at work four out of the last five days is probably a little...extra.”

David nodded on autopilot for a while. “That’s. Okay. Wow.”

“Yeah. So that’s another thing I didn’t mean to tell you.”

“Mm hm.” David cleared his throat and waited for something to come into his head as the logical next step in this conversation, but nothing seemed forthcoming.

“David.” Patrick squinted at him. “Are you _smiling_?”

“So you love me an insane amount, is basically what you’re saying.”

Patrick laughed shakily, swiping the heel of his hand across his eyes. “I love you an insane amount. Yes. That’s your takeaway here?”

David was beginning to think that he wasn’t responding in an appropriate manner, but he didn’t see how he possibly could. It was as if Patrick had just dropped the sun into his lap. He seriously, seriously hoped he wasn’t about to find out he was dying, not right after this; he’d be so pissed. 

“Okay, I hate the part where you were that stressed out and didn’t feel like you could tell me. But I love it that you don’t always handle everything perfectly,” he told Patrick finally. “It would be weird if you did. So even though your hyper-competence thing is super hot? You can be messed up sometimes, and that’s totally fine. I’ll still love you an insane amount, too.”

There was more in his head, a world more, a universe, but he didn’t have the right words and he very badly needed to kiss Patrick all over his entire face right then. He wasn’t sure if that was an appropriate reaction or not, although Patrick seemed to be enjoying it once he started, so it was probably okay. Definitely so much more needed to be said, but it would keep. They’d have the chance to get through a lot more fucked-up shit together, David hoped, and maybe they’d be better at it by the next time. 

*

The store was busy again the next day, because of course it would be, and around midmorning Alexis showed up. 

“No,” David told her. “Nuh-uh. Byeeee. What part of _I will text you when there is news_ didn’t register?”

“Um, excuse me, David, I am _shopping_. I happen to be out of lip balm.”

“Really? Well, the lip balm’s right here, next to the register. Get it and go.”

“No. I’m browsing.” Alexis opened a jar of conditioning mask and sniffed it. “Are people not allowed to browse in your store?”

“ _People_ are, yes!”

“Hi, Alexis,” Patrick said, appearing at David’s shoulder suddenly. “How are—oh, okay,” he added, accepting air kisses. “Your brother’s a little on edge.”

“I’m on edge? Me?” David’s voice went up several registers.

“Hmm. So if you two want to maybe, I don’t know, go grab an early lunch or a late breakfast or something and avoid scaring off the paying customers—”

Both of the Rose siblings looked like they had something highly indignant to say about this, but they were interrupted by the sound of David’s phone.

“Fuck,” David enunciated, and then answered it, before he could think about it too much. “Hello? Yes, speaking. Could you hold on one minute, please? I’m in a very loud...great, thanks.”

He muted the phone, widened his eyes at Alexis in a parody of her expression, then grabbed Patrick by the arm and steered him into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. The stockroom was closer, but the bathroom had a lock. And was also better for throwing up in, should the sudden need arise.

“I can’t talk to them,” he told Patrick. “You.”

“What? No—”

“Say you’re me. I’m right here, I just, I can’t. Please.”

“I don’t even sound anything like you!”

“Okay, I’ll talk at the beginning, but you have to be the one who listens. All right?”

“Oh god,” said Patrick. “No. Yes. Okay.”

“Good,” David said, and kissed him quickly, then pressed the unmute button. “Okay, I’m back, thanks,” he said, and passed the phone to Patrick. Then he bit his lower lip, squinched his eyes mostly shut, and waited, watching Patrick’s face.

*

A few minutes later, the door to Rose Apothecary opened and David shouted, “I don’t have fucking skin cancer!!” out into the street.

“Yay! Congrats!” someone, probably Twyla, called back from the cafe.

“Yeah, that’s good news. You should really watch your language, though,” said Bob, who was passing by. “There could be kids.”

David didn’t care; he even loved Twyla and Bob at the moment, along with everyone in the entire motherfucking universe. Up to and including Alexis, who was still wrapped around him in a stranglehold.

*

At the motel, David was unsuccessful in dodging his parents, which slowed him down for a few minutes. “I can’t believe I had to hear your news from the Jazzagals, David,” Moira said. “I really think you might have taken a moment to telephone your own mother before caterwauling it out into the town square, don’t you? I’m very glad, though,” she added, and actually took his hand and squeezed it, which was basically the Moira Rose equivalent of a bear hug. 

His father was much less restrained and actually did go for the bear hug, which was nice, for the first minute, and then he finally had to say “Okay, ow, Dad, I’ve got...things that are still healing, actually, and I’ve already been mauled by Alexis today, so. But thanks,” he added quickly, when Johnny stepped back looking contrite. “I love you, too.” It did get easier to say with practice, which he’d had a lot of lately, but his father’s look of outright pride was too embarrassing. He fled to the motel office to find Stevie.

“Pay up,” Stevie said the moment he walked in, holding out her hand without looking away from the computer screen. 

“Uh, what if I’m here to ask _you_ to pay up?” David came over and leaned on the counter, chin on his hands.

“Well, that would just be terrible,” Stevie said blandly, turning to face him now, still perfectly expressionless. “I mean, wow. I’d feel so bad.” 

David nodded, biting his lips and making his eyebrows Very Serious, and Stevie waited, playing facial expression chicken with him across the counter, until he couldn’t bite the smile back any longer or keep it out of his eyes. 

“Okay, fine, here’s your forty-three dollars,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket and slapping it onto the counter.

“There you go,” said Stevie, smiling back at him, and reached over to pinch his cheek and ruffle up his hair.

“Well, _that’s_ not allowed!” David went over to the mirror to rearrange himself. “I don’t know why everyone seems to think this is a license to manhandle me.”

“How did Patrick take it? The news, I mean. Not the manhandling. Is he okay now?”

“Um, yeah.” David flashed back to the sight of Patrick’s face in the store bathroom while he’d listened to the phone, a look of exhausted relief so intense it had sort of frightened him, and the feel of his arms, tight around David’s back, and the way he’d breathed. “He’s, yeah, fine. He’s good. I should go back to the store, actually, it’s pretty busy, but, you know. You seemed to really need this,” he came back over and tapped the bills on the counter, “so I thought I’d better bring it by right away. In case you were worried about it.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Stevie said. “But thanks. That was thoughtful of you. It’ll come in handy.”

“Mm. What are you going to spend it all on?”

“Really important stuff. I thought maybe, I don’t know, a dime bag, a fifth of Crown Royal, and an economy-sized bag of gummy bears, for a super-exclusive event to be held at my place? What are you and Patrick doing tonight?”

“Sleeping,” David said. “A whole lot of exciting sleeping. We might be free tomorrow night, though? I’ll have to check our calendar.”


End file.
